An investigation into the ballistic response of stitched plain weaves

Abstract

It has been widely accepted that yarn pull-out and windowing plays a vital role in absorbing impact energy in a protective fabric system. Stitching within the fabric has been devised to constrain the transverse and lateral displacement of the primary yarns, using conventional cotton sewing threads. This paper reports the experimental and numerical methods and results of an investigation on the mechanisms that enable higher impact energy absorption of woven fabrics with designed yarn stitching. Penetration tests were performed over a range of impact velocities from the ballistic limit up to 180 m/s. The experimental results showed that the energy absorption of the stitched fabric sample is over four times higher than that of unstitched one. For mass-normalized metrics, stitching the fabric on every other yarn yields a 146% improvement in energy absorption capacity when compared to unstitched samples. The numerical predictions suggested that yarn pull-out could be delayed or even eliminated on stitched samples, enabling the fabric to absorb more strain and kinetic energy.